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There is a sublime performance of the third Ballade in the Members' Recordings section of the Pianist Corner by an Estonian pianist with whom I'm not familiar. It would be worth mentioning in its own right, but it's all the more so because it was 'critiqued' in a laughably patronizing way by someone who has posted in this Devoted to Chopin thread.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1428
Loc: Land of Enchantment

Well, I wasn't trying to start a lot of criticism of other posters or complaining (or was I? after all, complaining tends to be fun), only to show how quickly and easily confusion can grow on this here Web thing. I was both annoyed and amused by this odd conversation, which grew out of a piece of art by Mary-Rose and a post from my very own blog.

I do like Jaak's performance of the ballade very much, and the few weaknesses it has will probably get worked out.

When Hershey Felder was doing his appearances as Chopin a few years ago, I wasn't aware of him, and I only heard of him because of our friends here, but yesterday my mother and I had the opportunity to see him turn into Leonard Bernstein. Here's part of what I just posted about it elsewhere:

"I was interested in Felder because he had greatly impressed some friends of mine with his one-man show on Chopin a few years ago, and I'm enthusiastic about Bernstein as well. Felder is a man who can play the piano, sing, lecture, compose, and write, and do a lot of it all at once. It was over an hour and a half of just him, with massive amounts of high-speed, high-energy verbiage and a wide range of music, including an impression of Lenny's father yelling at him in Russian, Yiddish, and English all at the same time. The amount of preparation and rehearsal needed must be incredible, and he has more than one show running at a time; he's still doing his old Gershwin presentation, and has a new one related to Lincoln, too. (I don't know if he's doing the Beethoven anymore.)

"Although I had read and heard the story of how Bernstein left his wife, and how she died, many times, I still sat in stunned silence with the rest of the audience as he described it. Felder connected surely and masterfully with us.

"My only complaint is that his hair was totally wrong."

This clip doesn't really give you the feeling of the live performance, and perhaps you can quibble with his singing, but here's the idea:

There is a sublime performance of the third Ballade in the Members' Recordings section of the Pianist Corner by an Estonian pianist with whom I'm not familiar. It would be worth mentioning in its own right, but it's all the more so because it was 'critiqued' in a laughably patronizing way by someone who has posted in this Devoted to Chopin thread.

Do you really need to drag your fight over here? Polyphonist is very accomplished, probably a professional, and none of his criticism could have been considered gratuitous or vicious. He certainly wasn't patronizing. On the contrary he showed definite respect for the poster by assuming his desire and ability to improve and by spending the time to address specific areas for improvment, not simply waving him off with a limp and idle, and useless, "that's nice." The only fault I can see is that he might better have addressed this in a PM.

I've come to loathe Polyphonist. An IDIOT. Remember I wanted a conversation about Op. 52? Once he or she got around to inviting me to approach him or her by private message, and I did so. Multiple paragraphs of well considered information and queries. You know what I got back? Two sentences.

You know, you all need to get off the high horses about 'playing nice'. The world is not a nice place, and that goes for most of what I've observed at Piano World as well.

What have you actually heard of Polyphonist, Frycek? How exactly do you know that he or she is accomplished? How would you even know how to judge whether someone is accomplished or not given your own limitations?

And for your information, Polyphonist pulled the same crap in the Pianist Corner by eviscerating a performance of Islamey. And the folks there RIPPED HIM A NEW ONE. So don't effing lecture me.

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1428
Loc: Land of Enchantment

You're out of line, Goomer, being truly hurtful, and if you wish to start attacking me, or the completely undeserving Frycek, I won't go along and encourage that. Please get some rest, and I hope you are feeling kinder and better tomorrow. Seriously.

Don't you start barging in here lecturing me. You drag a fight over here to me, you're going to get one. And what the heck do you know about my limitiations? Only what I have, in honesty stated. I know I've been playing the piano for more or less fifty years and I at least recognize when someone knows what they're talking about and when they don't. Maybe Polyphonist comes off as a bit arrogant. The knowledgeable usually do. You like to LOATHE other people. You like call them IDIOTS. You're not interested in respect. You say the world isn't a nice place. Piano World isn't a nice place. Of course the World isn't a nice place, nor is PW, necessarily. We have no real control over The World, it's "niceness" or lack of it, only of our own actions in it and those can be as "nice" or a nasty as we want them to be. Apparently you prefer the nasty. You certainly seem to enjoy spreading it about. Why else would you name yourself after an anal lesion? Well, go wallow in it.

Edwardian, do you happen to remember which 19th-c. personages appeared in other animations like this? I'd love to check them out. This one was scarily well done, even though one has to make a little extra leap to imagine Chopin speaking fluent Italian (not an extreme leap, since he did study that language in his youth and spend some time in Italy later). Although the voice is quite deep it didn't seem implausible to me.

It did seem odd that they had him say he didn't travel much. Far less than Liszt, certainly, but far more than most people of his time.

Elene

Sorry for the late reply Elene- on you tube there are John Keats animations :

Cheers for Oscar! It's the same voice who did John Keats LOL. Frycek was it you who made the witty post about an Oscar Wilde character who didn't feel worthy of his teapot? That made me laugh that did! It was on the are you worthy of your piano or something like that.

Cheers for Oscar! It's the same voice who did John Keats LOL. Frycek was it you who made the witty post about an Oscar Wilde character who didn't feel worthy of his teapot? That made me laugh that did! It was on the are you worthy of your piano or something like that.

Yes, I was but I got it a bit wrong, though I swear someone in one of Wilde's plays uttered that line, or perhaps it was just a movie adaption which took some liberties.

Here is the origin of the expression, a cartoon by George DuMaurier (Daphne's father). Is it my imagination or does the Aesthetic Bridegroom look a bit like Wilde?

Oscar himself definitely did make a remark about wondering if he could "live up to his blue china" which was apparently rather fine for his lodgings, when he was a young bachelor.

Cheers for Oscar! It's the same voice who did John Keats LOL. Frycek was it you who made the witty post about an Oscar Wilde character who didn't feel worthy of his teapot? That made me laugh that did! It was on the are you worthy of your piano or something like that.

Yes, I was but I got it a bit wrong, though I swear someone in one of Wilde's plays uttered that line, or perhaps it was just a movie adaption which took some liberties.

Here is the origin of the expression, a cartoon by George DuMaurier (Daphne's father). Is it my imagination or does the Aesthetic Bridegroom look a bit like Wilde?

Oscar himself definitely did make a remark about wondering if he could "live up to his blue china" which was apparently rather fine for his lodgings, when he was a young bachelor.

Ah the blue willow ware china- that was fine china indeed! I do have a thing for teapots, which given that I hate tea and only drink coffee is rather odd....

Those 40 million Chinese kids who are learning to play the piano are hearing Chopin quite a bit, no doubt. And I do like Yundi very much as a player of Chopin. (He handles Liszt quite convincingly as well. Of course he does other things, but I've heard him play those two the most.)**********************************************

I'm again chewing over the meaning of Chopin's impossible tempo indication of âª=100 for 10/3, which was his own and not an addition by an inattentive editor. Ekier and the National Edition team made a stab at explaining some of the odd tempi by positing that we don't know if the metronome marking might apply to the beginning of the piece, the overall average tempo, or what. That's a useful point, but it doesn't really explain this âª=100, which is completely outside any reasonable range of speed for the piece (except perhaps for the agitated section of tritones on the 3rd page, but that is not marked as going much faster than the rest).

It's so far outside reason that my teacher was wondering if perhaps there might have been something wrong with Chopin's metronome! I doubt that's the explanation either. He would surely have noticed!

Chopin was so typically careful about what he wrote that we can't just imagine that he made a mistake, either-- and he would have had to fail to correct the error on repeated proofs and editions.

I just can't come up with any explanation. It's almost as if Chopin had slipped into some alternate timestream for a little while. But then his metronome would have been running at the same relative rate, wouldn't it....

My teacher was doing what I've always done with this question, putting it aside as unsolvable, and started to feel that I was getting a bit unbalanced today in refusing to let it go. But somehow, surely, there must be a way to make sense of it.

So I have been working on the Cantabile for about a month now, amongst a bunch of other pieces and I am getting closer (it sounds musical at points) but still a ways away from being able to perform it. Seems so much more difficult than the other pieces which are in the ABSRM 1 and 2 range. I realize it is a simple piece, but I am a beginner and have learned quite a bit from it, and it's so nice to play. How long is a reasonable time to learn a piece that is clearly a bit of a stretch?

Elene
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/26/07
Posts: 1428
Loc: Land of Enchantment

I'm impressed that you're playing this piece at all as a beginner, johnnysd. I don't know how to answer the question of a "reasonable time" to learn it. Most people would need a number of months, if not a year or two, to get to a level of skill where this piece would be normal repertoire for them (it is easy as Chopin goes but that doesn't mean it's easy). But if you are concentrating persistently on it and putting in a lot of time and effort things may be very different. I've been amazed at what some people around here have been able to learn as beginners.

Speaking of reasonable or unreasonable times: I tried playing the first section of 10/3 at âª=100. About halfway down the page, my mother emerged from her room with a "WTF?" expression on her face. I explained what I was doing and why. "I. Don't. Like. It." she said, very firmly. Like, Do NOT do this. Ever. She's never reacted to my practicing remotely like that before, and the poor lady is subjected to listening to me day in and day out.

I'm impressed that you're playing this piece at all as a beginner, johnnysd. I don't know how to answer the question of a "reasonable time" to learn it. Most people would need a number of months, if not a year or two, to get to a level of skill where this piece would be normal repertoire for them (it is easy as Chopin goes but that doesn't mean it's easy). But if you are concentrating persistently on it and putting in a lot of time and effort things may be very different. I've been amazed at what some people around here have been able to learn as beginners.

Speaking of reasonable or unreasonable times: I tried playing the first section of 10/3 at âª=100. About halfway down the page, my mother emerged from her room with a "WTF?" expression on her face. I explained what I was doing and why. "I. Don't. Like. It." she said, very firmly. Like, Do NOT do this. Ever. She's never reacted to my practicing remotely like that before, and the poor lady is subjected to listening to me day in and day out.

I have to agree with her.

Elene

Dear Elene,

Mother knows best!

Still, if she happens to be out of earshot some day, you might give it another chance. At en = 100, the "ma non troppo" emerges rather better. And we also get a sense that Chopin intended something more brisk by the vacillation around "Vivace" and "Lento" (the latter implying something faster in the 1830s than it does now). Finally, the faster tempo gives the student a bit more of a challenge (so it might make sense in the context of an "Etude").

For real fun, have a go at it with the tempo marking on the English first edition, where Wessel left the flag off the eighth note, rendering the tempo qn = 100. No wonder the English had trouble making sense of Chopin.

ChopinAddict
6000 Post Club Member
Registered: 08/29/09
Posts: 6449
Loc: Land of the never-ending music

Re Op.10-3, this is what the Paderewski edition says:The M1 indicates the tempo as vivace, the M2 as vivace ma non troppo. Obviously later on Chopin prescribed once again a slowing down of the movement, for in the F.E. and G.E. there is the indication lento ma non troppo. The metronome indication is given in the G.E. as half note = 100 and in the F.E. and Mikuli's edition as an eighth note = 100, which is still too quick. In the M1 and M2 no metronome speed is given.

M1: Chopin's autograph copy belonging to CortotM2: Manuscript preserved in the Polish National Museum in WarsawF.E.: Original French editionG.E.: Original German edition

_________________________

Music is my best friend.âHaters don't really hate you. They hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.â â Yaira N

#2112570 - 07/04/1302:42 AMRe: Just for those totally devoted to Chopin
[Re: Elene]

ChopinAddict
6000 Post Club Member
Registered: 08/29/09
Posts: 6449
Loc: Land of the never-ending music

I wondered too... Maybe it was a misprint in the G.E.? It must be... It sounds absurd. I just checked Chopin's First Editions Online and the G.E. is not available (it is greyed out). The English Edition is available and has a quarter note = 100. Three different versions for the French, the German and the English first editions?

_________________________

Music is my best friend.âHaters don't really hate you. They hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.â â Yaira N

johnny, I am a beginner too. I've been learning Nocturne Op9 No1 which I initially thought was well out of my reach. It certainly took some time behind the keys to get comfortable with the first section (what I've learnt so far). Maybe in a couple of years I would have been able to learn the same section far quicker, so some people here say that beginners should not attempt difficult pieces for that reason of using their time more wisely.

If I enjoy playing it, then I play it. I don't mind how long it takes. I found I have to start spending time on other new songs to keep my interest going though, as I don't think I'll be able to dedicate all my time to this one Nocturne till it's finished. I would get bored and frustrated, I think it's working well for me to keep things fresh. By the end of the year I hope to have learnt the rest of the Nocturne but I haven't put a deadline on it.